Thanksgiving Week

We traveled to Utah this past week to spend Thanksgiving with my family. We always have the best time on our Utah trips! We had a lot of great outings and played a ton of games and laughed so much! Thanksgiving Day was full of cooking and eating delicious food and we even did a 5K that morning. We also enjoyed a temple visit during the week. Thank you mom and dad for hosting a great holiday! :)

The girls did A LOT of paper projects during the week - the favorite was doing leaf rubbings. Remember that we don't really have the typical fall leaves in Arizona, so they were so excited to see so many big leaves all over the ground...




Emma loves Aunt Sarah's bird...


We took a cold walk through the neighborhood to the nearby park...





I love all the fall leaves and the look of the trees as the seasons change from fall to winter... a simple thing that I really miss



A brisk walk home :)

We visited my grandparents in Salt Lake... we chatted at their house for a little while and then they took us to lunch. Emma has been learning about Native Americans in her 1st grade class this past month, so she was extra interested to check out all of great-grandma's awesome stuff. Since my grandma is a Native American, she is allowed to have her own eagle feathers!






I went to take a picture of the kids playing in the backyard, and Jake ran up to smile for the camera. He's such a cute little man...




I got to see my friend Charis while we were visiting - It was so nice to see her and catch up a bit. We went to lunch and since the weather was nice we went to Wheeler Farm too. I love Wheeler Farm!
















One of my favorite parts of the week was going to Provo to meet up with Aaron and spend some time at BYU. As we played at and around campus, I kept telling Ben how much I missed it! Ben and I loved our BYU time as newlyweds... I really do miss our Provo days :)

The BYU Museum of Art...








Slab Pizza...








SubZero Ice Cream...


On Thanksgiving morning (early!) a group of us (dad, Aaron, Ben, Emma, and I) ran a 5K. This was Emma's first race, so Ben and I decided to run with her the entire thing. It was fun to do a race together as a family! Emma ran a lot of it and some of it she got to ride piggy back on daddy :) I love to see Emma running and I'm so proud of her. It was a crowded event - they said 5,000 people were there to run...








It didn't ever snow while we were there, so the nearby sledding parks were all grassy... we really wanted the kids to get some snow time though, so we drove up the canyon to sled in the mountains. It was an adventure to say the least! The snow was deep and it was COLD - it was quite a trek to get to the sledding hill, but it made for some fun pictures and a memorable sledding experience! On the way back to the car we even saw a huge moose run across our path, so I guess we really were in the wilderness! :)








Our last hurrah before leaving the next morning, was a quick trip to the Hogle Zoo. I love that zoo! It had been a few years since I'd been, so it was so fun...
















Bye Utah and my cute family! I'll be back and hopefully soon!

Half a year older

My sweet little Claire turned 6 months old a couple weeks ago. Isn't she just adorable? I'm so happy to have her. :)

What we've been up to...

This will be my first post for November- oh wow - I'm usually a better blogger, but I've been getting sidetracked by other things lately... namely couponing, and running... Ben and I are training for a half-marathon in February and it feels good to have a running schedule and to be sticking to it! But outside of the occasional evening run, any spare moment has been sucked into couponing related activities- clipping coupons, planning shopping trips, and going to multiple grocery stores to snag all the deals I can. I've been feeling like a lunatic lately! I've been thankful to my coupon friends who have pointed me in the right directions and I've been loving helpful websites that don't charge me money in order to save money. :)

Anyways, onto other things... the kids got a ridiculous amount of candy from Halloween - we had 3 gallon size ziplock bags full of the stuff... and this was after the kids had eaten some from their first trunk or treat. Ben ended up taking some of it to work with him to give out and some may have found its way into the garbage can... and much of it found its way into my belly. So, it was fun while it lasted, but I'm glad it's all gone and out of my house now.


So, let's see - let's go through the rest of these pictures... we went to Bellair playgroup and played at the park and fed the ducks last week...


On Veterans Day we met up with Ben's parents, sister, brother, and cousins at the Heard Museum. It was a great November activity, learning about the Native Americans. It worked out wonderfully too, because Emma's 1st grade class is taking a field trip to the Heard Museum next week, but Emma will be missing it because we're heading to Utah. So, a big thanks to Ben's parents for the fun and timely outing!

Hi sweet Caroline!





Our human totem pole


Ben's parents took us out for a yummy lunch at MacAlpine's after the museum - the lunch was great, but the ice cream afterwards was the best! :)



Outside the ice cream place, was this great old jeep, perfect for Veteran's Day :)

Now for some really random stuff... I organized my pantry! Good for me. No cute canisters or baskets or anything, but I can finally quickly find what I need in there. It's a miracle! :)


One of the fun aspects of our neighborhood are all the hot air balloons. As we were getting dinner ready one was flying right above our house... the kids were yelling as loud as they could "Hello balloon people!!!"


We did a little Thanksgiving project for Family Home Evening this week. Here are our thankful leaves...




Wow! Thanksgiving is in just one week! I can't wait to eat a plateful of mashed potatoes! Oh, and also to see my family. ;)